<p>duke is better, but berkeley is a better deal - go to berkley</p>
<p>“I said most of them didn’t know much about “the research” that led to the awards, unlike the PhDs.”</p>
<p>What’s your source on this?</p>
<p>Do you really know what yours profs from your classes currently work on?</p>
<p>You’re assuming I go to college. :P</p>
<p>You got me! :p</p>
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<p>I would like to see evidence that Berkeley undergrad was in the top 5 in the 1980’s. Which year’s ranking was that?</p>
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<p>So let’s take that particular category out. Duke would STILL beat Berkeley in the USNews ranking. After all, that particular category only counts for a small percentage of the total points.</p>
<p>Now, if you want to talk about eliminating other categories as well, then which categories did you have in mind and why are they irrelevant? I would argue that things like financial and faculty resources, measured on a per-capita basis, are highly relevant to the quality of the education. </p>
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<p>Uh, but isn’t that just another reason not to prefer Berkeley? After all, if what you are saying is true, and private schools like Duke do indeed have a large percentage of privileged children who are savvy about what it takes to succeed and have plenty of connections, then wouldn’t you as a student want to put yourself in that kind of environment where you would also have the chance to learn to develop that same savviness and also develop connections? It seems to me that if what you are saying is true, then students who come to Berkeley have the wrong idea about what it takes to succeed, and then never get the chance to correct themselves because they are surrounded by other students who also have the wrong idea about what it takes to succeed. Hence, following that logic, wouldn’t it be better to instead go to a school where you have an improved chance of getting the right idea about how to succeed? </p>
<p>Heck, if anything, if what you are saying is really true, then it seems to me that it is precisely those lower-middle-class kids or children of immigrants who should REALLY want to go to Duke because that’s where they have the opportunity to hobnob with (in your words) all these privileged and connected people, and that’s something that’s less available at Berkeley (again, in your words).</p>
<p>sorry i’m just wondering about this. I know all the ucs are the same color but do they have like the same motto and insigna also and how bout mascot? do they all have the bear? what happens when b plays la in football or something? or do they ucs ever play each other? just curious
edit: wow am i bored…1 final tomrr…and didn;t even start yet…WoW…packet of 3 weeks of assignment due tomrr didn;t start yet either…</p>
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<p>Well, let me put it to you this way. 1986 Chemistry Nobel Prize winner, Yuan Lee, hadn’t regularly taught any undergraduate courses since at least the early 1990’s, and almost certainly for a lot longer than that (i.e. probably since his work was recognized as Nobel-caliber, even before he actually won the Nobel). Granted, he is emeritus now, but even before that, he hadn’t taught undergrad courses in years.</p>
<p>Or take Econ Nobel Prize winner George Akerlof. He isn’t teaching any undergrad courses during this academic year (2006-2007). Neither is Nobel Laureates Daniel McFadden. Neither is John Bates Clark winner Matthew Rabin. Neither is Brad DeLong. </p>
<p>Note, that’s not to say that there are NO major name profs teaching undergrads. For example, I agree that Michael Reich is a pretty big name in labor/welfare economics, and he does teach the undergrad labor economics course. I agree that Joseph Farrell is a major player in economic strategy and regulation, and he does teach an upper-division seminar. </p>
<p>But the fact remains that a lot of the Berkeley luminaries just don’t teach undergrad courses, at least, not regularly. Many of them teach only graduate courses. Some of them don’t teach anything at all. </p>
<p>And even if you did, frankly, often times you don’t really want them to. That’s because research skills and teaching skills are 2 different things. A guy can be a great researcher and yet be a terrible teacher. Good research requires the ability to have keen creative insights and the mental stamina to pursue your datasets to their conclusions. However, good teaching requires good communications skills and empathy with your audience. To give you an example from the corporate world, Steve Jobs is not the best researcher at Apple. Far from it, in fact. But he’s a great communicator and marketer. </p>
<p>Frankly, when you’re just an undergrad, having a prof who is a brilliant researcher matters little, particularly when you’re just starting out. Let’s take the case of Math 1A/B. If you’re taking Math 1A/B (basic calculus), it doesn’t really matter how brilliant your professor is. After all, basic calculus is basic calculus. It’s been well known for hundreds of years. A brilliant math prof isn’t going to be able to teach you “secret” basic derivatives or integrals. The vast vast majority of students in Math 1A/B will never understand the kind of math that a brilliant math prof does. And frankly, most of them wouldn’t want to anyway. After all, most of them are not there to become future mathematicians. They’re there to learn the basic math skills that they need to pursue their major, whether that’s engineering or a science or whatever. Only a small percentage of students in lower-division math courses actually intend to become math majors, and certainly very few of them intend to get PhD’s in math and become mathematicians. </p>
<p>Hence, what most of those students need is simply somebody who can explain math concepts clearly. They don’t need to know the deep theory behind it all, and frankly, they probably don’t want to know. All they want is, years later, when they’re trying to complete an engineering or science problem set, they can do the mechanics of the integrals or derivatives or whatever it is that is necessary to complete the assignment. That’s all they want to know. Just have somebody clearly explain what is going on.</p>
<p>I remember sitting in my lower-division math courses with my admittedly famous math prof, but who was a bad explainer of what was going on, and wishing that the class was being taught by my high school math teacher instead. Sure, my high school math teacher wasn’t a brilliant researcher. But at least he knew how to explain concepts clearly and simply, whereas this famous math prof clearly did not know how to do that. And honestly, I’m sure my old high school teacher could have done it. After all, this is not very advanced math. It’s just single and multi-variable calculus, linear algebra, and basic differential equations. That stuff isn’t that advanced. My HS teacher knew that stuff. He had studied it when he was in college. So I’m quite sure that he could have taught it, and taught it better than many ‘brilliant’ math profs could.</p>
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<p>Definitely not. For example, UCSC’s mascot is a banana slug. No joke.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ucsc.edu/about/campus_mascot.asp[/url]”>http://www.ucsc.edu/about/campus_mascot.asp</a></p>
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<p>They play each other all the time. For example, just a few hours ago, sadly, UCLA crushed Cal in basketball. UCLA and Cal also have a fierce football rivalry.</p>
<p>thanks for the clarification =D</p>
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<p>dude, be careful there, there’s a school called BERKLEY and it is not BERKELEY.</p>
<p>sakky,</p>
<p>Just to further emphasize your point about great researchers not necessarily being great teachers, I think it’s important to look at the LACs and see how fabulously successful the top LACs are at getting students into top PhD programs.</p>
<p>In fact, I think they’re vastly overrepresented at top PhD programs. And let’s face it- LACs tend not to have the big shot researchers that research universities have.</p>
<p>This thread really does need to be closed (or something). Let’s just resolve to: Berkeley’s great, Duke’s great,* you figure out which better fits you.</p>
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<li>not saying one is better than the other, but it’s obvious that both are great.</li>
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<p>^^^ yeah but then what would we fight about? Berkeley vs Stanford maybe? ;)</p>
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<p>It was in one of the very first issues, when they weren’t *remotely *scientific about it… just a ‘reputation’ poll of college presidents. I still have the issue somewhere. I don’t even think it distinguished btw grad & undergrad. It was just yo, prez, what do you think is a good school? And they ran with that. And look where it’s gone!</p>
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<p>I"m just saying that I would like to know which year that was exactly so I can look it up for myself.</p>
<p>In the time it took you to reply, you could’ve simply googled it …</p>
<p>In any case, from this:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=280581[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=280581</a></p>
<p>It seems that in '91, Berkeley’s rank was 13, and has slowly been going down in ranking (jumping a few times). By that, though, you could guess that it was at least in the top 10 before '91 (but that’s pure guessing).</p>
<p>Who knows? US News’ rankings are sporadic.</p>
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The very first US News rankings, published as “Rating the Colleges” on November 28, 1983 by Lucia Solorzano and Barbara E. Quick, consisted of a survey of college presidents. The current factors used to “calculate” ranks did not evolve until 1989.</p>
<p>^^^ yep, and Berkeley didn’t so much slip in the rankings as the rankings got more legit. At first they were *really *silly. Anyway, the system used for at least the last 15 yrs separates grad & undergrad rankings, as it should, so Berkeley no longer benefits in the undergrad rankings from a graduate-research halo effect. Harvard still does though <ducking></ducking></p>
<p>agreed w/ above, the only school which has really jumped significantly is upenn all the other ones are extremely constant…i can bet you i can predict which schools will be in the top 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 on the issue coming out this august =D</p>